The invention relates to a vacuum-shaped toy building plate with a substantially plane building surface provided with coupling means for being interconnected with toy building elements with complementary coupling means, said toy building plate also being provided with downwardly protruding spacer elements in the form of respective skirts which are, at their downmost ends, closed and, at their uppermost ends, open for imparting a certain height to said toy building plate.
Vacuum-shaped toy building plates are generally known in a form where most often they have a plane underside and a top surface provided with coupling means, e.g. in the form of cylindrical coupling studs. During play, these toy building plates are positioned on a plane support while being used as a basis for the construction of more comprehensive structures consisting of further toy building elements.
The plates are made of a comparatively readily bendable plastics material which is suitable for vacuum-shaping and since they are made with a comparatively small material thickness in order to maintain adequate tolerance on the coupling studs, the finished plates are also readily bendable.
Vacuum-shaping is a comparatively inexpensive manufacturing method and it is desired to be able to employ such process for the manufacture toy building plates which do not only consist of a plane surface with upwardly protruding coupling studs but also have a certain height and rigidity. Such toy building plates would provide a good alternative or supplement to other toy building elements that are typically made by injection moulding.
DK-B-129,080 teaches a toy building plate made of a thin plastics material, said toy building plate being provided with coupling means in the form of cylindrical coupling studs that protrude from both sides. This prior art toy building plate is primarily intended for being cut into smaller portions to form smaller toy building elements. Since the material thickness is small, the toy building elements made will be comparatively easily bent which is also one of the objects of these prior art toy building elements. The coupling studs of the toy building plate are arranged in regular rows which means that plane areas are provided between the rows that inherently serve as bending lines which make the cut-out toy building elements easy to bend along said plane areas between the rows of coupling studs.
If a toy building plate or toy building elements made from the toy building plate is/are used on a plane support, the downwardly protruding coupling studs impart a certain height to the plate/element but there is a risk that the plate/element tips if building is performed close to the edge of the plate/element since there are no supports along the edge but only further towards the centre of the plate/element.
It is the object of the present invention to provide a vacuum-shaped toy building plate of a certain height and exhibiting an increased rigidity compared to vacuum-shaped toy building plates known in the art, and which is stable no matter where on the building surface building is carried out.
This is obtained by configuring the toy building plate featured in the introductory part in such a manner that, along its periphery, the toy building plate is provided with a downwardly protruding flange having the same downward extent as said spacer elements.
Hereby a toy building plate is obtained that exhibits a higher degree of rigidity than the prior art toy building plates and which is also more stable for building purposes since the downwardly protruding flange and the spacer elements have the same extent downwards which means that the interior edge of the toy building plate as well as its exterior edge are supported when used on a plane support.
Preferably said coupling means in the building surface of the toy building plate are arranged in rows and the downwardly protruding spacer elements are so positioned that at least some of the natural bending lines, i.e. the plane areas between the rows of coupling means, are interrupted. Hereby further rigidity is imparted to the toy building plate.
According to a further embodiment, the downwardly protruding spacer elements are in the form of coupling studs for interconnecting with toy building elements having complementary coupling means. Such downwardly protruding spacer elements enable novel building opportunities since the toy building plates may hereby be mounted on top of other toy building elements.
The coupling means in the building surface of the toy building plate are preferably each in the form of a cylindrical coupling stud or one central coupling stud with an outer coupling area situated around same.